Category Archives: linguistics

‘What is this? This is a Celtic Cross.’ in Latin:

Video 1: In this video, I ask: ‘What is this? This is a Celtic Cross.’ in Latin.

In Latin:

‘Quid est hoc?’

Rhythmically:

‘Quíd ést hóc?’

In English:

‘What is this?’

In Latin:

‘Hoc est Crux Celtica.’

Rhythmically:

‘Hóc ést Crúx Céltica.’

In English:

‘This is a Celtic Cross.’

In Latin:

‘Quō est haec crux facta?’

Rhythmically:

‘Quóó ést há͡éá͡éc crúx fácta?’

In English:

‘What is this cross made with?’

‘With what is this cross made?’

In Latin:

‘Haec crux est lignō facta.’

Rhythmically:

‘Há͡éá͡éc crúx ést lígnoo fácta.’

In English:

‘This cross is made with wood.’

In Latin:

‘Quis fēcit hanc crucem?’

Rhythmically:

‘Q͡uís féécit hánc crúcem.’

In English:

‘Who made this cross?’

In Latin:

‘Pater meus hanc crucem fēcit.’

Rhythmically:

‘Páter méus hánc crúcem féécit.’

In English:

‘My father made this cross.’

In Latin:

‘Pater meus est hanc crucis factor.’

Rhythmically:

‘Páter méus ést hánc crúcis fáctor.’

In English:

‘My father is the maker of this cross.’

‘My father is this cross’s maker.’



Google Doc version:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XTIN4QHcKL-1EMkXCJ6Lp90YB3-JQrVeNCM1qIm15Ek/edit?usp=sharing

Luck Assists the Daring: or, on the Kerfuffle over Casement Park:

The Wikipedia/wikimedia image for the badge of Linfield F.C. The motto reads: ‘Audaces Fortuna Juvat’, which means ‘luck helpeth the daring’, or ‘luck assists the daring’.
Figure 1: Linfield F.C.’s badge. The motto reads: ‘Audaces Fortuna Juvat’, which means ‘luck helpeth the daring’, or ‘luck assists the daring’.

This is Linfield F.C.’s badge. Their home ground, Windsor Park, is in the news these days. Unionists, unsurprisingly, are opposed to the use of the derelict GAA stadium, Casement Park, for Euro 2028. The GAA has grounds like Lochrie/Campbell Park and competitions named after Provisional IRA members like Mairéad Farrell (1957-1988). The GAA, as well as being a sporting body, is also an explicitly nationalist political group. Sport is a means to ending partition—i.e. Northern Ireland itself!—for the GAA in its official guidebook. The semtex bombing that Farrell was planning was, in my view, psychopathic. Only a psychopath, in my view, can set a carbomb to go off, in a place bustling with tourists, and then drive away. The Gibraltar-bombing attempt was an Eniskillen-style attack on a military parade attended by tourists/civilians. The failed Gibraltar bombing was an Enniskillen-style attack, after the atrocity of Enniskillen had already occurred in 1987. In a documentary, Farrell said, lyingly, that she disaproved of the Enniskillen atrocity, even though she herself was planning an almost identical atrocity.

Video 1: At 41:40 it is reported that Mairéad Farrell ‘disaproved’ of the Enniskillen atrocity: this was a lie, on her part.


Leader of Sinn Féin, Mary Lou Mc Donald, said that Unionist opposition to using Casement Park for Euro 2028 was “incomprehensible”. In my view, this speaks only to her inability to comprehend. Now that Catholics/Nationalists are in the majority in Northern Ireland, I sense that they are behaving every bit as chauvanistic, intolerant, and triumphalist as the Old Stormont, the “Protestant State for a Protestant People”, supposedly was, and I say this as an ethnic Irish Catholic, myself.
Leo Veradkar, the Southern-Irish Taoiseach—pronounced: “tééshock”, or, to employ the IPA: /ˈtʰiː.ʃɑχ/—or Prime Minister, recently visited Windsor Park.

Photograph of Irish Prime Minister, Leo Veradkar, holding up a Linfield F.C. soccer jersey.
Figure 2: The Southern-Irish Taoiseach or Prime Minister holding up a Linfield F.C. Jersey in Windsor Park, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Linfield F.C.’s Latin motto, is as follows:

‘Audācēs fortūna iuvat.’‘Audācēs fortūna iuvat.’

, and, in English, it means:

‘Luck helpeth the daring.’

, or:

‘Luck assists the daring.’

Is Inspiring Philosophy a Secret Inerrantist?

In this video, I critique a short video in which Michael Jones is asked what his view of Biblical inerrancy is.

Video 1: This is the video that I am critiquing. It is 1:02 in length.
Video 2: This is my video critiquing Video 1.

I could not get my screen to record the audio from Video 1. However, Michael Jones’s dialogue is to be found in the transcript.

a thumbnail that I produced in Inkscape for a YouTube video that I made, critiquing Inspiring Philosophy's views on inerrancy.
Figure 1: I made this Paulogia-style YouTube thumbnail in Inkscape.

The transcript of my video as a word doc:

The transcript of my video as a pdf:


Transcript:

Is Michael Jones a Secret Inerrantist?


CIARAN: “Is Inspiring Philosophy a secret Inerrantist? Well, let us take a look at this video, and see.”

 

ZAC SECHLER: “How do you go about the Inerrancy of Scripture, is that an idea that you have?”

 

CIARAN: “The correct answer to this question is ‘no’. That’s it! ‘No. I do not hold to the idea of the Inerrancy of scripture.’ This is the correct answer but let us see what Michael Jones says.”

 

MICHAEL JONES: “I don’t even know what that means, anymore.”

 

CIARAN: “Ok, so Michael Jones supposedly does not know what ‘inerrancy’ means anymore so let us explain it to him: if we come into CodePen, here. The term, ‘inerrancy’, comes from the Latin word, ‘errāre’, and ‘errāre’ means ‘to err’; ‘to go astray’; ‘to make a mistake’; ‘to wander away from the truth’. That is what the ‘errāre’ part of ‘inerrant’ means. That is what the ‘errant’ part of ‘inerrant’ means. And then we have… then we have have the word, ‘in-’, and what does ‘in-’ mean? Well… I apologise, this is my first time using streamyard. Eh, so ‘in-’ is is Latin for ‘privative’ and so ‘in- ’ ‘ means ‘not’. ‘in-’ is a prefix. ‘in-’ is a privative prefix that means ‘not’ so ‘inerrant’ quite simply means ‘not errant’. ‘inerrant’ quite simply means ‘not having any mistakes’. ‘inerrant’ means ‘not having

any errors’ and I find it hard to believe that Inspiring Philosophy does not know the definition of the word ‘inerrant’. This is a tactic[1] of Greg Koukl’s.

When one is to ask an apologist for the evangelical Christian Faith a difficult question, they

say: “What do you mean by that?” and so here Inspiring Philosophy has essentially said: What do you mean by that?” in the vein of Greg Koukl’s Tactics. And so this is what I mean by that: Does the Bible have errors? Does the Bible go astray? Does the Bible make a mistake? Does the Bible wander away from the truth? And the honest answer to that is ‘yes! It does!’ and if you want a list of all errors in the Bible than this right here (pointing to Skeptic’s Annotated Bible) is a great way to start and the list of errors in the Bible presented by this book is by no means exhaustive. And so let us get back to our friend, here. Inspiring philosophy.”

 

MICHAEL JONES: “I don’t even know what that means, any more.”

 

CIARAN: “This is a dodge! This is a shuffle! This is an evasion! The honest answer is: ‘No! I do not hold to the idea of Biblical Inerrancy.’ But inspiring Philosophy, instead, just simply sidesteps the question.”

 

INSPIRING PHILOSOPHY: “I remember I was at ETS…”

 

CIARAN: “Evangelical Theological Seminary. Michael Jones arguing towards academia. He brings the PhD, Mike Licona, into it, which is simply an ‘argūmentum ex auctōritāte’ or ‘an argument from authority’.

 

INSPIRING PHILOSOPHY: “… last year, and I attended a lecture by Mike Licona, and he said the same thing: ‘depending on who you talk to, what does “inerrancy” mean?’”

 

CIARAN: “Well, depending upon whether the person is intellectually honest or not, ‘inerrant’ means ‘does it have errors?’; ‘Does it have historical errors?’; ‘Does it have scientific errors?’; ‘Does it have moral errors?’; ‘Does it errors, in Math?’; ‘Does it add things up, wrong?’ And the answer and the answer to all of this is ‘yes, it does! The Bible has all of these errors in it.’ And so, if you ask an intellectually honest person what ‘inerrancy’ means, they will give you an honest answer. However, if you ask a Christian fundamentalist apologist what ‘inerrancy’ means, then they will try to muddy the waters by bringing in concepts such as ‘functional inerrancy’. You know the Bible is only inerrant essentially where it doesn’t make a mistake and all the places where the Bible does not make a mistake. Eh, well… that is not covered by ‘functional inerrancy’[2], because God really has nothing to say about these issues. So, it depends: if you ask an intellectually honest person what ‘inerrancy’ means they will give you an intellectually honest definition. I think this is an extremely intellectually honest definition of what ‘inerrancy’ means.”


 

INSPIRING PHILOSOPHY: “… I don’t think that we should even use the term, anymore.”

 

CIARAN: “No, the term is accurate. And this is a very Orwellian part of Michael Jones. He redefines words. He discards words. You know, ‘inerrancy’ is a good term. Is… Does the Bible make mistakes? In the genealogy of Jesus Christ, Matthew can’t even add up the generations right… He makes a mistake in arithmetic. So, there are arithmetical errors in the Bible. So, it is not the term that is at fault: it is the fact that the Bible fails the inerrancy test. So, let us keep the term, ‘inerrancy’. Let us keep the term, ‘inerrancy’, so that we can say of this book: ‘no, it is not inerrant!’”

 

INSPIRING PHILOSOPHY: “I don’t know what it means!”

 

CIARAN: “You don’t know what ‘inerrancy’ means!? I mean, I am … This is why I think that Michael Jones is the most intellectually dishonest apologist on the internet… because he says wild stuff, like this.”

 

INSPIRING PHILOSOPHY: “And everyone pretty much agrees…”

 

CIARAN: “Michael Jones here, is about to make the question-begging fallacy, here. He is going to beg the question that there were perfect originals… and, in begging the question, here, he actually gives the proper answer! The proper answer… you know, we have to deduce this out of him. The proper answer is that he thinks that the originals were inerrant but the copies… we only have copies of the Bible, and so the copies of the Bible: they aren’t inerrant. So so on the one hand he says: “I don’t know what inerrancy means”, but, here, he essentially says, well yes the autographa[3], the autographs, the Ausgangtexte[4], the originals: they were inerrant, so… in this, in the first, in the first few seconds of the video, he says: ‘I don’t what it means.’ And then, in the last seconds of the video he says: ‘Well, I kind of think that the originals were inerrant.’ So, let us go back to see Michael Jones commit the question-begging fallacy:”

 

INSPIRING PHILOSOPHY: “I mean everyone pretty much agrees, there are scribal errors.”

 

CIARAN: “This is begging the question: ‘scribal errors’: ‘scribes’ copy texts, they don’t write texts. So, here he is begging the question that the originals were perfect. So, I mean, in this… you know, we can kind of, you know extract, from him here what he actually thinks: he kind of actually thinks that the originals were perfect; that the originals were inerrant.

 

INSPIRING PHILOSOPHY: “… like in Ezra or if you compare lists between Chronicles or Kings: there is going to be a little bit of discrepancies there.”

 

CIARAN: “‘discrepancies’, you know, if a document is ‘discrepant’, I mean, this is a synonym for ‘error’, so he will use the word ‘discrepancy’; he won’t use the word ‘error’. He’s… ha ha ha! he’s tap-dancing around the word, ‘error’!

 

INSPIRING PHILOSOPHY: “I don’t see that as much of an issue.”

 

CIARAN: “Ha ha ha! Well, it’s evidence against your religion! It might not be conclusive evidence, but it is evidence against your religion, because for, until roughly the time of Spinoza, the Christian Church did hold to inerrancy, but then Spinoza began to notice mistakes and errors in the Bible, in The Age of Enlightenment, and since then there has been a slow retreat from the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy. And it’s evidence against your religion, eh, I mean, this is a tactic of his friend, Testify’s, as well. Testify will say: ‘Oh well that doesn’t disprove Christianity!’ No, okay, it doesn’t disprove it but it is evidence against it. If your God actually inspired a perfect and inerrant book, then that would be evidence in favour of Christianity. So, the fact that this book, supposedly written by God is saturated with errors is, in my view, evidence against it, so, it is an issue. It is an issue, but, you know, here is Michael Jones hand-waving the issue away.”

 

INSPIRING PHILOSOPHY: “I am more interested in talking about reliability[5]…”

 

CIARAN: “The Bible is not reliable. Genesis to the Book of Ruth is pure fiction, and if you read The Oxford Bible Commentary they’ll even say that 1st and 2nd Samuel: it’s fiction, but some of the characters in there like Saul and David actually existed. Eh, the New Testament is full of forgeries. Read Bart Ehrman. The Gospels are anonymous novels that are full of contradictions. The synoptics and the Gospel of John have Jesus crucified on different days. So, again, he is side-stepping the issue. The question was: ‘Do you hold to the idea of inerrancy?’ but Michael Jones shuffles towards the totally different question: ‘Do you think that the Bible is historically reliable?’ Well, that’s not the question, Michael Jones: The question is: ‘Do you think that the Bible is inerrant?’ and you’ve totally dodged and evaded this question.”

 

INSPIRING PHILOSOPHY: “… than inerrancy, because I don’t even know what ‘inerrancy’ means,”

 

CIARAN: “You don’t know what ‘inerrancy’ means. You know I find that… That’s staggering to me!”

 

INSPIRING PHILOSOPHY: “… anymore.”

 

CIARAN: “‘anymore’ So you once knew what it meant. So, have you become more ignorant? Ha ha ha! Have you… Usually, people acquire and augment their knowledge as they go on: they don’t get more and more ignorant. So you used, so you used to know what ‘inerrancy’ meant, back when you probably believed in it, but now that you kind of pretend that you don’t believe in it, anymore, you don’t. You’ve suddenly lost the ability to discern what the term, ‘inerrancy’, means.”

 

INSPIRING PHILOSOPHY: “It is different depending on who you talk to.”

 

CIARAN: “‘depending upon who you talk to’ yes! If you ask an intellectually honest person what ‘inerrancy’ means, then they will define it, thusly. They will define it thus: ‘Does it contain errors?’ ‘Is it not-errant?’ ‘in-’ means ‘not’; ‘errāre’ means ‘to make a mistake’. ‘Does the Bible contain a mistake?’ So, yes, it does depend on who you talk to: if you talk to an intellectually honest person, they will define it, something like this.”

CIARAN: “If you ask a Christian fundamentalist apologist, then they will try to redefine ‘inerrancy’ so as to account for all the errors. And this is why I call Michael Jones a Gish-galloper extraordinaire. This video has been a few seconds, and yet it has been full of errors. I don’t know how long this video I’m recording is[6], but it is significantly longer, than this video here. And, as I often think to myself: ‘one could just have an entire counter-apologetics channel devoted to critiquing Inspiring Philosophy, because he puts out so much error.”


[1] Koukl, Greg (2019). Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions, 10th Anniversary Edition. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan.

 

[2] Robert M. Price PhD discusses ‘functional inerrancy’ in Inerrant the Wind. The function of Scripture is arbitrarily defined to be ‘The Good News of Salvation’, and so innerancy only covers what is deemed to be ‘The Central Gospel Message’ of Salvation through the atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. This allows the Bible to be saturated with errors in History, Science, morality, and arithmetic, whilst remaining ‘functionally inerrant’. Cf. Price, Robert McNair. (2009). Inerrant the wind: The evangelical crisis of biblical authority. Amherst, N.Y, New York: Prometheus Books.

 

[3] ‘autographa’ is derived from Latinised Greek. ‘autós’, in Ancient Greek means ‘himself’. ‘graphein’, in Ancient Greek means ‘to write’. Thus, etymologically, the ‘autographa’ are ‘the original manuscripts as handwritten by the original authors’.

[4] German for: ‘texts as they left [the hands of the original authors when they were finished writing them].’ ‘aus’ is German for ‘out’. ‘gehen’ is German for ‘to go’. ‘ausgehen’ is German for ‘go out’. ‘der Text’ is German for ‘the text’. Thus, ‘der Ausgangtext’, etymologically, is ‘the text as it went out from [the original author when he/she had completed writing it]’.

[5] Michael Jones is more interested in talking about Biblical Reliability, because this is a much easier tenet of Evangelical Christianity to defend than Biblical Inerrancy. If we take Licona’s and Habermass’s approach, then what we can say is that, at a minimum, the Bible gets a number of facts correct! These are the much-vaunted “minimal facts”! I side with Pine Creek Doug: the best way to counter-apologise is simply to laugh at Apologetics.

[6] It turned out to be sixteen minutes and fifty-five seconds long.

Death Shall Find a Way!

I am just doing some Wheelock’s Latin (6th Edition 2005).

Figure 1: My trusty copy of Wheelock’s Latin. Depicted in the Mosaic is Virgil Among the Muses.

Dr Ian Malcom played by Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park (2003) famously said:

‘Life finds a way.’

Video 1: An iconic scene from Jurassic Park (2003)

Our phrase from Virgil (70 BCE- 19 BCE):

‘Fāta viam invenient.’

or, rhythmically:

‘Fááta víam invénient.’

can be loosely translated as:

‘Death shall find a way.’

However, literally, our phrase from Virgil means:

‘The fates shall find a way.’

From the Latin, ‘fāta’, we derive the English adjective: ‘fatal’.

The Classical Latin Alphabet:



The Classical Latin Alphabet:[1]

Introduction:

In beginning our study of the Classical Latin language, we shall begin with its alphabet. We shall learn the Latin name of its letters, and how these letters ought to be pronounced.

The Latin word for ‘alphabet’ is ‘abecedārium.’[i]

Body:

Classical Latin possesses an alphabet that contains twenty-three letters. These letters are as follows:

The Classical Latin Alphabet:
Latin Lowercase Letter: Latin Uppercase Letter: Letter Name in Latin: How to Pronounce the Letter’s Name in Phonemic Transcription:
a

A

ā

/aː/
b

B

/beː/
c

C

/keː/
d D /deː/
f F ef /ɛf/
g G /geː/
h H /haː/
i[ii] I ī /iː/
k K /kaː/
l L el /ɛl/
m M em /ɛm/
n N en /ɛn/
o O ō /oː/
p P /peː/
q Q /kuː/
r R er /ɛr/
s S es /ɛs/
t T /teː/
u[iii] V ū /uː/
x X ix /ɪx/ /ix/
y[iiii] Y ī Graeca /iː ˈgra͡ɪ.ka/, /iː ˈgra͡ɪ.kɑ/
z Z zēta /ˈsdeː.ta/, /ˈzdeː.ta/, /ˈsdeː.tɑ/, /ˈzdeː.tɑ/
Table 1: The Classical Latin Alphabet. The diligent student will pronounce the letters of this alphabet, aloud, over and over again; and shall write them out, over and over again; until he/she will have committed this alphabet, and the names of its letters, to memory.

Conclusion:

In this chapter have examined the alphabet of the classical Latin language. We have committed the knowledge:

  • that the Latin word for ‘alphabet’ is ‘abecedārium;’
  • that the Latin Alphabet comprises twenty-three letters;
  • which letters comprise the Latin Alphabet;
  • the names of the Latin letters;
  • how the names of the Latin Letters are pronounced in Latin.

to memory. Our now having acquired the above-listed knowledge, we can now move forth to following chapters that will treat of the pronunciation of Latin in greater detail.


[1] ‘The Classical Latin Alphabet’ can also be referred to as ‘the Classical Roman Alphabet.’

Endnotes for the Chapter, ‘The Classical Latin Alphabet:’

[i] The Latin, ‘abecedārium,’ genitive singular: ‘abecedāriī,’ is a 2nd-declension neuter noun. The first four letters of the Latin alphabet are:

‘ā,’ ‘bē,’ ‘cē,’ ‘dē

.

Hence from the first four letters of the Latin alphabet we derive the word:

‘“ā,”-“bē,”-“cē,”-“d’”-“-ārium.”’

The 2nd-declension neuter nominal suffix: ‘-ārium,’ genitive singular: ‘-āriī,’ denotes ‘a place where things are kept.’ Where do we keep our letters? We keep our letters in an ‘alphabet,’ or, in Latin, in an ‘abecedārium.’

Hence, etymologically, in Latin, an ‘abecedārium,’ can be defined as: ‘a place where we keep the Latin letters, “ā,” “bē,” “cē,” “dē,” etc.’

[ii]Properly speaking, there is no ‘j’ or ‘J’ in Latin. However, one will often see this character’s being employed—usually in Church texts and other works composed later than the Classical epoch—to denote a consonantal ‘i,’ or ‘I.’ In Latin, ‘i,’ as a vowel, is pronounced, when short, as /ɪ/ or /i/; and when long as /iː/.

In Latin, consonantal ‘i’ can be represented by the IPA symbol, /j/. The consonantal ‘i,’—or ‘j,’ as one sometimes sees (in Church texts)—represents this very /j/ sound. The consonantal ‘i’ in the Latin word, ‘iugum,’ or ‘jugum,’ /ˈjʊ.ɡʊm/ that means ‘yoke,’ is pronounced as the ‘y’ in the English word, ‘yurt,’ i.e. as: /jεːt/.

[iii]In Classical Latin, properly, ‘u,’ and ‘v’ are the same letter. Properly, a ‘V’ is nothing more than the capital form of the lowercase ‘u.’ Therefore, strictly speaking, the presence of a lowercase ‘v,’ in a classical Latin text, is an aberration. Oxford University Press wishes, eventually, to strike this aberration from all of its Latin publications, and I wish them well with this endeavour. Hence, the word ‘verbum,’ that one may observe in present O.U.P. Latin texts will eventually become ‘uerbum.’ However, this practice, today, is far from standard. I prefer this practice, and this is the practice that is employed by Peter V. Jones and Keith C. Sidwell’s Reading Latin: Text Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986. However, these texts—although I deem them more correct—are still in the minority. At present, in most Latin texts, a ‘u,’ or a ‘U,’ is employed to represent the letter ‘u,’ as a vowel; and a ‘v’ or a ‘V’ is employed to represent the letter ‘u,’ as a consonant. Hence, the letter ‘u,’ or ‘U,’ when short, can be said to represent the phonemes: /ʊ/ or /u/ and, when long it can be said to represent the phoneme /uː/. The letter ‘v’ or ‘V’ can be said to represent the phoneme /w/. This will be the practice employed in this present work. Although not our focus, in Church texts, the letter ‘v,’ or ‘V’ can be said to represent the phoneme /v/.

The technical name for the phoneme, /v/, is ‘voiced labiodental fricative.’

The Phonetics term, ‘voiced,’ informs us that vibrating air from the vocal chords is involved in the pronunciation of /v/.

The Phonetics term, ‘labiodental,’ informs us that both the lips and the teeth are involved in the pronunciation of /v/.

The English adjective, ‘labiodental’ is derived from the New Latin 3rd-declension adjective, ‘labiōdentālis, labiōdentāle,’ genitive singular: ‘labiōdentālis,’ genitive plural: ‘labiōdentālium,’ base: ‘labiōdentāl-.’ This New Latin word is derived from the Classical Latin 2nd-declension neuter noun, ‘labium,’ genitive singular: ‘labiī,’ which means ‘lip;’ and from the Classical Latin 3rd-declension masculine noun, ‘dēns,’ genitive singular: ‘dentis,’ genitive plural: ‘dentium,’ which means ‘tooth;’ and from the 3rd-declension adjectival suffix, ‘-ālis, -āle.’

Hence, etymologically, in this instance, the English adjective, ‘labiodental’ denotes ‘the use of the lips and the teeth in the articulation of a phoneme.’

The Phonetics term, ‘fricative,’ informs us that turbulence, caused by the air escaping from a narrow channel—in this instance, the mouth and lips—is involved in the pronunciation of /v/.

[iiii]As with ‘i,’ the Latin letter, ‘y,’ can function as a vowel or as a consonant. Its name in Latin is ‘ī Graeca’ which means ‘Greek “i.”’ When the character, ‘y,’ functions as a consonant, it is said to represent the phoneme, /j/, and on the occasions that ‘y’ functions as a vowel, when short it can be said to represent the phonemes: /ɪ/ or /i/ and when long—i.e. when a macron should appear above it, as: ‘ȳ’—it can be said to represent the phoneme: /iː/.

The Elements of Euclid in Greek and Latin

I was trying to parse my way through an edition of The Elements in Greek and Latin:

https://archive.org/details/euclidisoperaomn01eucluoft/page/x

The name of The Elements in Ancient Greek is:

Στοιχει̃a

or, when transliterated:

Stoicheĩa

.

The Ancient-Greek word, τὰ στοιχει̃α or, when transliterated ‘tà stoicheĩa,’ is a plural form of the 2nd-declension neuter verb, τὸ στοιχει̃ον genitive: του̃ στοιχείου or, when transliterated: ‘tò stoicheĩon,’ genitive: ‘toũ stoicheíou.’

The Ancient-Greek word, ‘tò stoicheĩon,’ can mean ‘an element in a set.’

Figure 1: The elements of this set are alpha, beta, gamma and delta.

The Ancient-Greek word, ‘tò stoicheĩon,’ is formed from the Ancient-Greek masculine noun, ὁ στοι̃χος genitive: του̃ στοίχου or, when transliterated, ‘ho stoĩchos,’ genitive: ‘toũ stoíchou,’ which means ‘steps,’ or ‘a flight of stairs;’ and the Ancient-Greek 2nd-declension neuter nominal suffix, ‘-eĩon,’ genitive: ‘-eíou’ which denotes ‘a means (of),’ ‘an instrument of;’ etc.

Figure 2: a ‘stoĩchos’ or ‘series of steps.’

The term, ‘stoĩchos,’ according to Wiktionary, may be traced back to the indo-european word:

*steigʰ

, which means:

‘climb.’

Hence, etymologically, the Ancient-Greek term, ‘stoicheĩa,’ can be said to mean: ‘the means of climbing up;’ ‘the means of stepping up;’ ‘the means of ascent;’ etc.

This is highly instructive, as, in truth, Elements is a book that is a Jacob’s ladder, of sorts, by which one can ascend, element by element, into the heavens of mathematical knowledge.

Figure 3: With The Elements of Euclid, we advance in our mathematical knowledge element by element. Each element is, conceptually, like a rung, heaving us upwards to Mathematical prowess; to an implicit knowledge of Euclidean Geometry.

Operator Precedence in Arithmetic

The Microsoft Word version of this blogpost. (.docx)

The PDF version of this blogpost. (.pdf)

Operator Precedence in Arithmetic:

Introduction:

Conventional Arithmetic possesses rules for the order of operations. Which operations ought we to evaluate first? In what order ought we to evaluate operations? This is the topic that this chapter wishes to address. ‘Precedence,’ is also sometimes referred to as ‘the order of operations.’

Body:

The Etymological Definition of ‘Precedence:’

Our English noun, ‘precedence,’ is derived from the Latin substantive participle, ‘praecēdentia.’[3] ‘Praecēdentia,’ in Latin, means ‘the abstract concept of which things go before [other things].’

Within the context of Arithmetic, ‘precedence,’ etymologically, means ‘the science of determining which operations go before [other operations];’ ‘the science of determining which operations should be evaluated before [other operations].

The Acronym, ‘P.E.M.D.A.S:’

The acronym, ‘P.E.M.D.A.S.,’ stands for:

  1. Parenthesis;
  2. Exponentiation;
  3. Multiplication and Division;
  4. Addition and Subtraction.

The Acronym, ‘P.E.M.D.A.S.,’ can be easily remembered with the Mnemonic phrase:

‘Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.’[4]

Levels of Precedence:

As we can observe from the above ordered list, some operations share the same level of precedence. For example, the operation, multiplication, and the operation, division, have the same level of precedence. Multiplication and Division share the third level of precedence, in the above list. When we are confronted with an expression or an equation that contains operations at the same level of precedence, seeing that in Anglophone countries, we read from left to right, then we evaluate operations that possess the same level of precedence from left to right. Hence, when two or more operations—within an equation or an expression—share the same level of precedence, then we evaluate them from left to right. Concerning operations at the same level of precedence, we evaluate from beginning at the leftmost operation, and work our way rightwards.

An Example of Precedence:

In the expression:

2 ÷ 1 + 3 × 42 – 5 + ( 3 – 2 )

, we first evaluate the operation in parenthesis, i.e.:

( 3 – 2 )

. When we evaluate:

( 3 – 2 )

, then we obtain the difference:

1

.

This renders the original expression as:

2 ÷ 1 + 3 × 42 – 5 + ( 1 )

or as:

2 ÷ 1 + 3 × 42 – 5 + 1

.

Second, we evaluate the exponentiation operation i.e.:

42

. When we evaluate:

42

, then this obtains for us the power:

16

. This renders our original expression as:

2 ÷ 1 + 3 × 16 – 5 + 1

.

The operations, Multiplication and Division, share the same level of precedence. However, given that the division operation is further to the left, on the page, than the multiplication operation, then we evaluate the division operation before we evaluate the multiplication operation.

Given that the division operation:

2 ÷ 1

is further to the left, on our page than the multiplication operation:

3 × 16

, then we evaluate:

2 ÷ 1

before we evaluate:

3 × 16

.

When we evaluate:

<!–

2\div1

–>

2 ÷ 1

, then we obtain the quotient:

2

. This renders our original expression as:

2 + 3 × 16 – 5 + 1

. Then we proceed to evaluate:

3 × 16

, and this obtains for us the product:

48

. This renders our original expression as:

2 + 48 – 5 + 1

.

The operations; addition, and subtraction; share the same level of precedence. In the above ordered list, they are at the 4th level of precedence. We evaluate these operations as we should find them, beginning at the leftmost, and working our way rightward. Hence, we evaluate:

2 + 48

first. This obtains for us the sum:

50

. This renders our original expression as:

50 – 5 + 1

. We then proceed to evaluate the operation:

50 – 5

, which obtains for us the difference:

45

. This renders our original expression as:

45 + 1

. We then proceed to evaluate the expression:

45 + 1

. This obtains for us the sum:

46

.
This renders our original expression as:

46

. We have thus simplified the expression:

2 ÷ 1 + 3 × 42 – 5 + ( 3 – 2 )

to:

46

. We have observed mathematical precedence οr the order of operations in our simplification of the expression:

<!–

2 \div 1 + 3 \times 42 – 5 + \left ( 3 – 2 )

–>

2 ÷ 1 + 3 × 42 – 5 + ( 3 – 2 )

to:

46

.

Conclusion:

In this chapter, we have endeavoured to gain for ourselves an implicit understanding of precedence as it pertains to basic or conventional arithmetic. Boolean arithmetic, an arithmetic of logic employed in Computer Science, also possesses precedence or an order of operations, which we shall examine in a subsequent chapter. In the next chapter, we shall examine precedence or the order of operations as it specifically applies to the C programming language.


Footnotes:

[1] The Etymology of the English mathematical term, ‘arithmetic,’ is as follows. The English adjective, ‘arithmetic,’ is derived from the Latin 1st-and-2nd-declension adjective, ‘arithmētica, arithmēticus, arithmēticum.’ Further, the Latin adjective, ‘arithmēticus,’ is derived from the Ancient-Greek phrase, ἀριθμητικὴ τέξνη or, when transliterated, ‘arithmētikḕ téchne,’ which means ‘the art of counting;’ ‘the skill of counting;’ ‘the science of counting.’ ὁ ἀριθμός genitive: τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ, or—when transliterated: ‘ho arithmós,’ genitive: ‘toũ arithmoũ,’—is a 2nd-declension Ancient-Greek noun that means ‘number,’ ‘numeral,’ Cf. ‘ἀριθμός#Ancient_Greek,’ Wiktionary (last modified: 7th September 2018, at 17:57.), https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ἀριθμός#Ancient_Greek , accessed 29th April 2019.[2] Cf. ‘arithmetic,’ Wiktionary (last modified: 25th April 2019, at 04:45.), https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/arithmetic, accessed 29th April 2019.

[3] ‘praecedēntia’ is the nominative neuter plural of the participle, ‘praecedēns,’ which means ‘going before.’ The form, ‘praecedēntia,’ means ‘those things going before;’ ‘the concept of things going before.’ We shall metamorphose ‘praecedēntia’ into a 1st-declension feminine noun that means ‘precedence.’ ‘praecedēntia’ genitive singular: ‘praecēdentiae,’ is a 1st-declension feminine noun that means ‘precedence.’ ‘praecēdentiae,’ can be further broken down into the preposition, ‘prae,’ which means ‘before;’ and the 3rd-conjugation verb, ‘cēdō, cēdere, cessī, cessum,’ which means ‘to go,’ and the Latin 1st-declension feminine nominative nominal suffix, ‘-ia,’ genitive: ‘-iae,’ which, in this instance, denotes ‘a noun formed from a present-participle stem.’ Hence, the etymological definition of ‘precedence’ is ‘the concept of things going before [other things].’ Within the context of arithmetic, the etymological definition of ‘precedence is ‘the concept of operations being evaluated before other operations.’ Cf. ‘praecedentia,’ Wiktionary (last modified on 9th September 2013, at 02:28.), accessed on 1st May 2019. Cf. ‘praecedens,’ Wiktionary (last modified on 11th November 2016, at 16:40.) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/praecedens#Latin, accessed on 1st May 2019.

[4] Stapel, Elizabeth, ‘The Order of Operations: PEMDAS,’ Purple Math (2019), http://www.purplemath.com/modules/orderops.htm, accessed on the 1st May 2019.

The Shiyn

 

shiyn_my_inkscape_glyph_raster
Figure 1: This is the ‘Shiyn’, the 21st letter of the Hebrew abjad. Its Aramaic name is שִׁין or ‘shīyn’ or ‘shîn’. It is spelt ‘shiyn,chiriq; yod; final nun;’ I drew this shiyn with gel pens. I then scanned it into Vector Magic, and then I tweaked it in Inkscape with the Typography extension.

This is the 21st letter of the Hebrew abjad. An ‘abjad’ in linguistics is an alphabet comprising only consonants and no vowels. The word ‘shiyn,’ is Aramaic for ‘teeth.’ In Proto-Sinaitic, or “Paeleo-Hebrew” this character looks like a pair of incisors.

shiyn_my_phonecian_script
Figure 2: This is what a ‘shiyn’ looks like in Phoenician or Proto-Sinaitic or Pale-Hebrew.


שֵׁן or ‘shē(i)n’ is ‘tooth’ in Hebrew.

my_tooth_assembly
Figure 3: I drew this tooth in Assembly, an app-store app. שֵׁן or ‘shē(i)n’ is ‘tooth’ in Hebrew. It is spelt ‘shiyn,tseire; final nun;’ It is a feminine noun.

Should the dot be placed over the left horn, then this character is pronounced like a clean ‘s’ would in English. The IPA symbol that represents this sound is /s/.

siyn_clean_s_sound_my_inkscape_vector_magic_raster
Figure 4: Should we place the dot over the left horn, then we pronounce this character as a clean ‘s’ or /s/.

Should the dot be placed over the right horn, then this character is pronounced like an ‘sh’ would in English. The IPA symbol that represents this sound is /ʃ/.

shiyn_soft_s_h_sound_my_inkscape_vector_magic_raster
Figure 4: Should we place the dot over the right horn, then we pronounce this character as a “soft-‘s’” sound; as we would pronounce the digraph ‘sh’ in ‘shop.’ The IPA symbol that represents this phoneme is /ʃ/ or ‘esh’.


One word with which this character is associated is the Hebrew word for fire, which is אֵשׁ or, when transliterated: ‘ē(i)sh.’

flame_eish_my_from _svg
Figure 5: It is as though a fire bites into whatever it is consuming. Hence the shiyn, as a pictograph, is said to represent fire, or passion etc.


esh_fire_phonecian

Figure 5: What the Hebrew word, ‘ē(i)sh’ means when spelled with Proto-sinaitic or Paleo-Hebrew characters. The pictographic meaning of this word seems to be ‘the strength of consuming,’ or ‘strong consuming,’ or ‘leading to consuming,’ etc.


The word for ‘man’ in Hebrew is אִישׁ or, when transliterated, ‘īysh,’ or ‘îsh.’ Man has, as it were, the fire of life inside of him, the götterfunken, or ‘divine spark,’ as Schiller put it. His internal body temperature is 37 degrees celsius. Also, man – if not careful – can be utterly consumed by his appetites and passions.

man_my_cloakroom_symbol
Figure 6: Ecce homō! Behold the man! It is as though he is animated by some divine flame. However, he is also a collection of passions and appetites, and – if not careful – he can be destroyed by these.

The Famous Syllogism in Latin, Greek and English:

The Famous Syllogism in Greek, Latin and English.

Click here so as to download a Microsoft Word version of this article.

Click here so as to download a pdf version of this article.

The Famous Syllogism[1] in Greek, Latin and English:

Introduction:

Quite early on, in his Mathematical Analysis of Logic, George Boole–whence in programming and computer science we derive the datatype name, ‘Boolean’– introduces this famous syllogism to us, his readers.

Body:

In Ancient Greek:

ὁ Σωκράτης ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος.

πάντης ἄνθρωποι ἐστι θνητοί.

οὖν ὁ Σωκράτης ἐστι θνητός.

When Transliterated:

ho Sōcrátēs estin ánthrōpos.

pántēs ánthrōpoi esti thnētoí.

oũn ho Sōkrátēs esti thnētos.

In Latin:

Sōcratēs est homō.

Omnēs hominēs sunt mortālēs.

Ergō, Sōcratēs est mortālis.

In English:

Socrates is a man.

All men are mortal.

Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Conclusion:

The Ancient-Greek term, ὁ λόγος or, when transliterated, ‘ho lógos,’[1] means–within the context of logic– ‘statement,’ or ‘argument.’

The Latin 1st-and-2nd-declension adjectival suffix, ‘-ica, -icus, -icum’ means ‘of,’ ‘about,’ ‘concerning,’ ‘pertaining to,’ etc.

Hence, etymologically, ‘logic’ is ‘the study of the truth or falsehood of statements and arguments.’

Conventional arithmetic or Conventional Algebra has quantity for its subject. George Boole developed an algebra, or an arithmetic that had logic as its subject.

Indeed, in his book, The Laws of Thought he terms this ‘arithmetic’ or ‘algebra’ of his ‘a calculus of logic’ by which he meant ‘a system whereby the truth or falsehood of statements/arguments could be analysed.’


[1] This syllogism—and those like it—are sometimes termed ‘barbara.’ The term, ‘barbara’ is a mnemonic device which informs us that this type of syllogism comprises 3 affirmations. The 1st premise affirms that Socrates is a man; the 2nd premise affirms that all men are mortal; and the conclusion affirms that Socrates is mortal.

[2] The 2nd-declension masculine noun ὁ λόγος Genitive:τοῦ λόγου or, when transliterated: ‘ho lógos’ Genitive: ‘toũ lógou.’


Glossary:

    calculus (ˈkælkjʊləs) noun plural -luses

  1. a branch of mathematics, developed independently by Newton and Leibniz. Both differential calculus and integral calculus are concerned with the effect on a function of an infinitesimal change in the independent variable as it tends to zero.
  2. any mathematical system of calculation involving the use of symbols
  3. logic an uninterputed formal system. Compare formal language (sense 2)
  4. (plural -li (ˈkælkjʊˌlaɪ) ) pathology a stonelike concretion of minerals and salts found in ducts or hollow organs of the body[C17 from Latin: pebble, stone used in reckoning, from calx small stone, counter]
    • calcular (ˈkælkjʊlə) adjective relating to calculus
    • calculous (ˈkælkjʊləs) or calculary (ˈkælkjʊlərɪ) of or suffering from a calculus. Obsolete form: calculose
    • calculus of variations a branch of calculus concerned with maxima and minima of definite integrals.[1]

[1] Collins English Dictionary: Complete and Unabridged, 12th edn., Glasgow, U.K., Harper Collins Publishers, 2014, Loc. 66,078.

The Classics Make Engineering Easier: Latin names of Formal Logic Symbols.

 

Introduction:

It is my contention that the knowledge of Latin and Greek make STEM[1] easier to learn. A huge number of STEM terms are derived from Greek and Latin.

 

 

george_boole_my_compressed_2018

Fig 1:
I drew this portrait of George Boole with pencils. George Boole was self-taught and fluent in Latin, Greek and Hebrew by the time that he was 12.

Vel Symbol:

 

vel_symbol_my_scripted_svg

Fig 1:
This is the Vel symbol. You may view the Vector at my CodePen Account.

In Formal Logic this symbol represents ‘disjunction.’ The equivalent in Boolean Algebra is ‘Inclusive Or.’ ‘vel’ is Latin for ‘or.’ One sees this quite a bit in liturgical rubrics[2].

 

The Wedge Symbol

 

conjunction_my_scripted_svg

Fig 1:
This is the Wedge symbol. You may view the Vector at my CodePen Account.

In Formal Logic this symbol represents “conjunction.” The equivalent in Boolean Algebra is “And.” In Latin, ‘ac’ or ‘atque’ is ‘and.’ Sometimes this symbol is called this. One sees this quite a bit in ecclesiastical Latin.

 

‘Annūntiō vōbīs gaudium magnum: habēmus pāpam! ēminentissimum ac reverendissimum dominum [praenōmen] sānctae rōmānae ecclēsiae [cōgnōmen] cardinālem quī imposuit sibi nōmen [nōmen pāpāle].’

‘I announce to ye a great joy: we have a Pope!, the most eminent and most revered [forename] lord of the most holy Roman Church, Cardinal [surname], who hath placed upon himself the name [regnal name].’

In the offertory the priest prays:

‘…prō fidēlibus christiānīs vīvīs atque dēfūnctīs…’

‘…for all faithful Christians living and dead…’

In The Young Pope (2016), a Cardinal, disfavoured by Pius XIII/Jude Law, prays this in the frozen wilderness of Alaska, to whence he was banished.


[1]An acronym which stands for ‘Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics.’
[2]The term, ‘rubrīcus,’ in Latin means ‘red.’ Liturgically, the actions of the priest are written in red, whereas what the priest says is written in black.